The Shoe Goblin is, essentially, a goblin obsessed with shoes. He ardently defends shoes whenever he comes against one who is disrespectful of them. Generally, this retribution is delivered in the form of a shoeing of epic proportions. The shoe goblin is especially defensive of tiny shoes, as seen in Comic 34.

The Shoe Goblin's obsession with shoes seems to run in the family; eons ago, his ancestors built a giant shoe and sealed it inside a shoe-themed temple.

In Comic 200, James revealed the Shoe Goblin had at one point became addicted to odor-eaters, and was currently 'shoeless'. His situation had apparently improved eight comics later, as can be read below.

The first mention of the Shoe Goblin (in Comic 11) seems to indicate that Beaver thinks he is one of Steve's imaginary friends, but this opinion seems to have changed by Comic 98, when Beaver himself acknowledges fear of the Shoe Goblin.

Despite causing "a shoeful of trouble" to both Beaver and Steve nowadays, he was originally mainly Steve's arch-nemesis. The constant fear of shoeing has impacted Steve so much that he even has dreams about the Shoe Goblin, as seen in Comic 36.

'Rupert hits the town' storyline

When the mutated Rupert T. Roach was destroying the city, Beaver and Steve had no choice but to join forces with the Shoe Goblin as shoes were a roach's greatest fear. It was at that point (in Comic 63) that the aforementioned Master Shoe was revealed. However, the Shoe Goblin still managed to double cross Beaver and Steve, fueling their mutual hatred even more. And as if that weren't enough, he was soon (in Comic 65) also proven to be cooperating with Pandas.

Foiled again!

'The revenge of the SHOE GOBLIN' storyline

At one point (about 10 years before Comic 208) he was working on his Blog o' Shoes late at night when some unknown fiend with unwashed hands had infected his keyboard, and by rubbing his eyes he contracted conjunctivitis. To get his revenge, he spent the next ten years developing a space station to exactly fit and deliver a size 6 billion (and a half) shoe in order to shoe the Earth. His plan was, however, foiled by inconsistent footwear measurement systems, as can be seen on the picture on the left.

All would've been well if Steve hadn't then pushed the self-destruct button, destroying the space station and leaving the gigantic shoe adrift in space, soon to be sucked in the Earth's gravitational pull, causing the shoeing to take place after all and consequently wiping out human existance on the planet and allowing the Future Squids to take over at some point in the following million years.